


if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it

by xpatxperience



Series: Lowmen, Wyoming [2]
Category: Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 18:29:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12371529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xpatxperience/pseuds/xpatxperience
Summary: Time passes, the past remains static.





	if you can't fix it, you've got to stand it

**Author's Note:**

> \--this is for sydney-- who said i shouldnt use the word nonchalantly--- fuck u sydney

    He steps into the church, his boots making a soft noise against the well worn wooden floor. Though the church has only stood for a short while, the dust and harsh winds has done it no favours. The outside was well worn and settled into the facade of the town naturally. Much like the keeper of the building had. Tom Sawyer had fitted himself into the social mold of the community with little to no effort. His natural charisma has not faded with time and while Huck had grown up with Tom and his flirtatious antics and really thought nothing of them now, the rest of the town simply adored him.

Huck simply adored him. 

Which is why he was here. In a church. For the first time in thirteen years.

   Huckleberry Finn hadn’t always thought religion was a scam. There was a point in his life that he thought the God above ruled over his creation with an iron fist, like the stories of kings of old. When he managed to attend school in his youth, his teacher would tell him about how God punishes those who deserve it and the righteous will thrive. Then around the twentieth time he was left bleeding in a ditch with open wounds caused by his father hand he began to wonder if God just really hated him personally. 

  Around the time that Huck Finn became an orphan he started to wonder if God hadn’t just left humanity to burn in its own heinousness. Huck wouldn’t blame the guy, he would have bailed as soon Eve ate that apple, because really, where was humanity to go but downwards from there?  

  Around the time that Huck crossed the Missouri state line and entered into what future Americans would call  _ Nebraska,  _ Huck was sure that God was dead.

  And since Huck is not one who enjoys being proven wrong, it is an ironic miracle of God that he found himself in such a state of  _ I fucked up  _ that the only way he can see reconciliation is to face down the protestant church - face to face. How he got in this state? He wishes he could forget, but it plays in his memory constantly. It was early morning… 

\----

    The soft western breeze blew in through the open window whisping Huck’s hair across his face. Loose strands of brown hair fell across his face and curled behind his ears as he laid on tangled white sheets staring at the breathing form of his lover. Mornings like these are rare among the couple. Something is usually always dragging them out of bed, weather it be Tom and his commitments to the community in some form of prayer or Huck having to go and drag some stubborn patron out of one of the rooms. There had been plenty of mornings soured by the call of Madam Kat kicking a lesser gentleman out onto the street. Now there was just the two of them lying side by side in a bed made perfectly for two with no worshipers or drunks to call them out of their small delicate bubble. On the outside they painted together a perfect scene of tranquility and happiness. Internally, Huck Finn was having an existential crisis. Internally, Huck was thinking about how much he hated being an adult. 

   He left the South to escape from all that society wanted him to be. He was so busy listening to what everyone else was pressuring him to do and to be, that he forgot to actually think about what he himself wanted for the future. As he traveled, he found minimal work in mining town after mining town. Stopping at trading posts for a few days to survey the options and plan out where his next meal would come from. If all else failed he could take matters into his own hands and dive deep into the woods. 

  But now? Now, he had a job and a bed and a lover, all things that require responsibility and careful planning to keep. Huckleberry Finn wasn’t a planner. He just took whatever came his way and made it work. He didn’t plan to beat up some rowdy drunkard all those years ago and land a job, it just happened. Just like he didn’t mean to fall in love with his best friend… it just kinda… happened. 

  Which is why Huck now lies awake in the early hours of the morning contemplating life’s great mysteries while having an internal conflict about how he is going to manage all of these adult responsibilities. Because there are many things Huck Finn didn’t want to become when he grew up and an adult is one of them. However, now he was forced to think about what other so called adults did when they found themselves between a rock and a hard place.  

Normal couples in normal situations don’t have to worry about things such as whether or not they are brutally stoned by the whole town for simply existing. Normal couples don’t have to sneak their lover up a flight of rickety and creaking stairs in the dead of night just so they could lay next to each other. Logistically he knows that Tom and his relationship will never be anything more than a childhood dream. That there are only two ways this can end; with both of them dead or dead to each other.    

   “I can hear you thinking ya’ know.” Tom mumbles, only half awake, into his pillow. “Don’t hurt yourself.” Huck cracks a smile and playfully hits his newly awakened partner. 

   “You’re still just a peice of shit at heart aren’t you?” Huck snorted relaxing out of his own toxic thoughts. “That’s the dangers of waking early. You have thoughts. You wouldn’t know anything about that though” Huck sighed, trying to make his words come off as casual as possible as not to alert Tom to the crisis that just occurred. 

   “Me? Thinking? That’s dangerous.” Tom replied sitting up to be eye level with Huck. “What about?” Huck sighed again and prayed to a God he didn’t believe in that Tom would just forget all of this and go back to sleep.

   “The usual. Life. Death. The fine line between it.” Huck murmured noncommittally. Tom gave out a breathy laugh at that one.

   “Alright there Shakespeare. What’s got you thinking about the deeper workings of the universe.” Tom knows that he should let it drop. He always lets it drop. But something about today just says that he finally needs this one thing in his life addressed. Huck remains silent.  

   “You could always try seeking solace at the church you know.” Tom was deliberately not making eye contact with Huck and both of them knew why. They had had this conversation a thousand times and it had always ended the same. “You know you are always welcome.” 

   “And you know that is about the last thing I want to do.” Huck huffed and swung his legs of the edge of the bed. He stood up, slightly shivering from the sudden cold air on his skin. “No offense to you and all,” he motioned to Tom’s form, “but the last time I put my faith in God I ended up paying severely for it.” There was nothing more Huck wanted than to get out of this conversation as fast as possible. “If there is one thing I didn’t drop as soon as I crossed the Missouri border, it's the promise no one will ever have a say in my affairs again, especially some all powerful force who will strike me down for just damn bein’ alive.” Huck walks over to his dresser, the only other major piece of furniture in the small room, quickly pulling out a pair of trousers before turning back around and addressing Tom again.

   “And don’t you even think about giving me the whole speech about how those pastors from down South just misunderstand God’s words, because I’ve never met anyone who thought I could go to heaven before you came in through the door.”

   Tom sighs and rubs his hands down across his face before running one back through his hair. He leans over on one of his knees and looks at him with what Huck calls his ‘come to Jesus talk’ face. 

   “People tend to distort God’s message for their own personal gain. Even I won’t deny that.” Tom said, his words coming out slightly exasperated. “And I think God doesn’t love them any less than he loves you for freeing slaves or-” he takes a deep breath, “-loving me. Why else would we be so content like this?” Huck open his mouth to argue but but Tom cuts him off sharply.

   “I trust God and believe he knows what he is doing. When I realized I loved you I knew things were going to be…” He pauses, searching for the right word.

   “All around shit inducing?” Huck supplies, attempting to find his suspenders, which had been carelessly thrown on the floor last night. 

   “I was looking for difficult.” Tom says rolling his eyes. He looks out towards the window and the incoming sunlight falls directly across his face giving him an other worldly halo. “Which is why I think sometimes He doesn’t always give us what we want, but what we need.” He looks now at Huck standing before him, who is halfway through pulling a shirt over his head and looking back at him with a fire in his eyes.

   “I have done everything myself in this life - with no help from God. I pulled myself out of my father’s wrath and across the country into a better place. I did that! What did everyone else want me to do?” His voice is rising but he can’t stop himself from the passion the is building inside of him. “Stay. They wanted me to stay in that cesspit and become some good little Christian. So don’t tell me I needed to be there, being beaten and abused because God wanted it.”

   Tom pulls himself out of the bed and is quickly staring down Huck at that accusation. He attempts to stop Huck from rapidly dressing himself but Huck just moves around him with skilled practice. 

   “You know that’s not what I meant Huck.” Tom exclaimed desperation rising in his voice. “ I would never insinuate anything like that ever and you know it. What your father did was cruel and downright despicable and he got what was coming to him. But you need to start healing Huck.” Tom ignores the half attempted glare Huck gives him at that comment. “Everything you’ve been through doesn’t rest lightly on a soul, I imagine. One of these days it's going to break free from wherever you’ve buried it and destroy you.” He pauses and takes a careful step forward. “I just don’t want to see that. I’d never want to see you hurt again.”

   “Thank you for your concern.” Huck snarled back throwing Tom his clerical shirt at him with slightly more force than necessary. “But I promise you I’ve put everything from those years behind me and I don’t intend on reliving them over and over again for the sake of making peace with them. They aren't going to drag me down because I’m not going to give them the time of day.” 

    “So when you wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweat that just from what?” Tom snapped. Huck’s body froze up. His entire form became rigid and suddenly distant.  “Pestilence?” 

    “I don’t know what you're talking about.” Huck quipped. Each word was short and sharp and any regular man would have been sent into silence with the menace behind them. Tom Sawyer was not a regular man however. 

    “Don’t play stupid with me. It’s beneath you. You wake up a strange hours of the night, sitting up like a bat out of hell and shaking so badly you just can’t stop. Then sometimes when I look over at you it’s like you're not even there. Everything about you had just disappeared out of your eyes. And the next moment you're throwing up for no god given reason.” Tom was now fully in Huck’s personal space each accusation hitting Huck right between the eyes. Each breath of concern Tom breathed Huck inhaled and spat it out with malice. “It terrifies me. I’m worried about you Huck.” Tom drops his eyes slightly in attempts to somehow break the raw tension in the room. “God can sometimes show us things that we can’t discover ourselves. I learned the hard way. Sometimes if you're looking for peace you have to start in the places that might be the hardest.”

   “Don’t pretend you know what best for me.” Huck scoffs and tries to move past Tom. He reaches for the door but Tom grabs his wrist. Just as if he’d been burned Huck spins around and rips his arm out of Tom’s grasp. Tom never realized just how much taller Huck is than him until he is towering over him, dark eyes ablaze with fury, and for the first time Tom is utterly terrified. His back is pressed against the wall as Huck stares him down. He fears just how powerful Huck is. 

   “Do. Not. Touch. Me.” Is all he says before he stalking out of the room leaving Tom utterly alone and emotionally drained.

\----

    As his eyes adjusted to the the sudden loss of the bright western sun, Huck glanced around the one room Chapel taking note the other members of the congregation. 

    However as his eyes ghosted over Ethel and Rachel, the sisters who owned the grocer, he locked eyes with the man standing at the opposite end of the aisle. Tom Sawyer, who had been crouched down to talk to Beatrice -the oldest member of the community- stood up slowly and stared right at Huck in awe. A smile cracked across his lips and spread out across his entire face lighting up the entire room. Or at least Huck personally thought. Whenever Tom smiled you could still see that adventure the lived behind his eyes and that combined with the freckles made him look literally twelve. A small child dressed up in his father's clothes, not quite sure how to handle the world. Yet as Huck looked at his childhood friend he couldn't help but think that they turned out pretty okay for coming from such a toxic background. 

They were here, together despite such odds and he would let himself be torn apart in hell before he would let himself ruin it. 

    So here he was, Huckleberry Finn was going to church for the first time in thirteen years.

Because he fell in love with a pastor instead of doing the sensible thing and just marrying one of the nice girls who worked in the small store and had a gaggle of kids before dying in a bar fight gone wrong. Now, he was sitting in the back pew of a hot and stuffy church after eye fucking a religious figure in God's house. 

As if he wasn't condemned to hell enough already. 

A couple people turn around to look at him, most giving him quizzical looks, because it wasn't everyday the elusive bartender attended a regular Sunday mass. A few however, just smiled pleasantly as if to reward him for crawling out of bed after a long night of corralling drunkards home. 

The murmurs all hushed when Pastor Sawyer took his place near the alter.

    "Peace be with you."  He addressed the congregation.

    "And also with you." They replied in harmony. Huck remained a quiet observers in the back. His eyes never leaving his husband.

    "Please stand for the opening hymn."

\--

    All the worshipers gather around the church exterior despite the hot sun beating down. They gossip and talk among themselves, laughter rising out of the crowd at the punchline of a funny story. Huck waits until everyone has filed out before stepping out and joining his community. He is standing on the porch of the church, dust blowing lazily around his feet when a voice clears behind him.

     "You came." Huck turns his head slightly to look over his shoulder. Tom stands there leaning against the doorway to the church, arms crossed and sandy brown hair swept across his forehead. 

Huck rocks on the balls of his feet and shoves his hands deeper into his pockets. His eyes focus on the already rotting floorboards as he feels a flush bloom across his cheeks and the back of his next. Huck might be able to stare down hired killers and lie his ass off to the face of the sheriff but there was something about the way Tom managed to learn the art of saying so much with so little words. For a kid who used to  _ never shut up _ he could now just glance at Huck and already know his thoughts before Huck even knew them himself. 

    "You're an observant one aren't you." Huck said, speaking out into the church yard. "I'm sure everybody else noticed as well so you better be happy."  

    “If you came just to apologise I’m sure there were more convenient method for you.” Tom said nonchalantly walking up and looking out into the yard of worshipers. Nearly the whole town was congregated out in the midday sun. The fact that Huck had been here with them did not go unnoticed though everyone had the decency to keep their mouths shut. “I know you have a reputation to uphold as the village atheist.” Huck lets out a laugh and quips back,

   “And it was an easy reputation to uphold before someone showed up.” He nudges Tom softly desperately trying his best to seem like he knew what he was doing. Tom smiled back at him, knowing just how lost Huck felt through all of this but appreciating his sentiment none the less.

   “That being said,” Tom continued, forcing the conversation back onto the topic of origin, “You need to do this for the right reasons. Not because anyone told you you had to. That action breeds a kind of hatred that is unfathomable.”

Huck had a pretty good idea just how unfathomable that hatred went. 

    “I know that.” He said, casually linking his fingers around Tom, keeping his body faced straight ahead as to create an inconspicuous environment around them. “But I guess if I’m stuck with you, religion’s going to be part of my future as well.” 

    “So what are your reasons?” Tom asks gently, as if setting a bone in place.

Huck thinks for a second as he recalls all the reasons the church has been shoved into his life like a rotting knife into the folds of his flesh. The widow told him to turn to the church to escape a sinners life and thus eternal damnation, but now Huck has a whole nother pile of problems besides just stealing and very much about the affection he feels for the person standing next to him.

    “I don’t quite have my reasons yet - because I don’t understand religion yet. People twist their words until I can’t understand anything, much less what they want me to believe.”

    “Then why did you come?” Tom asks.

   “It wasn’t one particular thing.” Huck started slowly. In truth he wasn’t quite sure what gave him the energy to drag himself down to the farthest edge of town. “I just kept thinking about how I’ve spent my whole life believing the preachers when they said I was gonna burn in the pits of Hell, not sure why I shouldn’t believe one now when he says I can be saved.” Huck explains. He sighs looking out over all of the people who seem to understand their place in the world so easily. “But then, what do I know.”

    “Then go read the word of God for yourself.” Tom told him bluntly. “I know that you can read so don’t even try that with me Finn.”

   “Aren’t you supposed to tell me what to think? Isn’t that how this whole church thing works?” Huck asked, only half of his heart in the humor as the other stood firmly with the actualization of the question. “Are you trying to get out of your job?”

   “Please, if everyone actually had individual thoughts on God my job would be much harder. And that’s how the Catholic church works, but I have a feeling people telling you what to think isn’t your style. Considering that when I told you to pick up bread after work you said, ‘Don’t tell me what to do Sawyer’.”

    “But I picked up the bread, didn’t I?” Huck retorts. Tom laughs and just shakes his head. 

    “Yeah, I suppose you did.”As Tom says it a smirk creeps onto his face that sends Huck back in time to ideas that meant nothing but trouble. “ I have a feeling you’d have a lot in common with some presbyterians.” 

    “Bless you.” Huck say solemnly. 

Tom stares at him; his eyes narrowed in both confusion and mock hurt as he tries to rationalize what Huck just said.

    “You know what Huck? The saddest part is I can’t even tell if you’re joking.” 


End file.
